Destruction of UK Cemeteries

[Richview]

Good Morning,
For many years my husband and I have been gravestone photo volunteers in South Wales UK and in the past 12 months are shocked at the state of both Council run cemeteries and churchyards.With the Health & Safety rules and vandalism we are losing so many historical gravestones that are invaluable for family tree research.
With a large portion of my own research based in AU & USA I've been fortunate with the help of RAOKG
and Find A Grave to obtain photographs but here in the UK we seem reluctant to get involved.If we don't make a move and take photographs now in a few years it will be to late.
We enjoy our Sunday morning walks through one of the UK largest 110 acre cemeteries and always manage to photograph at least 50 old memorials.
I know of 2 sites eager to add photo's so please lets all give it some thought and act before it's to late.
We have such wonderful old churchyards in Cornwall,Devon,Wales -it's a good hobby and as in our case we sent a photo to an 89 year old lady that had never seen her grandfathers grave.
Richview

[Vasquez109]

The churchyard at Llangyfelach scares me as the first thing I saw as I was walking in there were 2 cans of cider on the floor and a used condom. 

On top of one monument was a discarded syringe. I'm certainly not going to be going walking through the long grass in there. Why don't the police do something, along with church wardens.

David.

[Sikes]

I know of 2 sites eager to add photo's so please lets all give it some thought and act before it's to late.

Richview, do you mean 2 churchyards / cemeteries or 2 websites?

[Richview]

Hi Sikes,
I have come across 2 websites for adding grave photo's but I guess that there are probably more.
One is Find A Grave the other Gravestone Photographic Resource.
I noticed with Find A Grave there are many UK entries with very few photo's attached
I added a few photo's on the weekend with the information already in place it takes a few mins to just add a photo to the entry.

R

[flipflops]

This site has a list of churches that are to be sold, so they might be a priority for photographing.

http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/resources/property/index.php

[Plummiegirl]

Churchwardens?   

Cemeteries will usually have groundsmen who work during the day.  And Churchyards may have a gardener or gravedigger.   I doubt if many churchyards these days would have a churchwarden.

In London, many cemetaries are not locked or do not have very high walls to stop people from gaining access after hours.  The Police will not know about the problems unless called out to an 'incident'.

Neither Police or those responsible will have the time to patrol after hours.

Many cemeteries have 'Friends' these days and these will often be volunteers who will try to keep the cemetery clean and tidy.

[Vasquez109]

Our church has churchwardens!

[Richview]

Our Church has infact 2 churchwardens but they are not at Church on a daily basis.
In the main churchyards are not closed at night
Our large council cemetery is 110 acres divide by a main road gone are the day's when a lady can visit a grave alone I certainly wouldn't.
Last summer visiting my grandparents grave was shall I say interesting the local cider drinkers had gone to sleep on graves further along there were another group
very drunk and not treating the area with respect. I was warned one morning by 2 police officers not to carry a bag as they had had a spate of thefts.
The saddest sight is the way that historic graves and private war graves are falling into a state of disrepair which if you read my first post I suggested that perhaps we should all make an effort to photograph the graves before it's to late.Once they are gone a large part of family history is lost for future generations.
Be it churchyards or council cemeteries with little effort there are many of us that could take a few photographs -my husband and I enjoy taking volunteer photo's
and also take some for several sites -in 3 years we have taken around 2000 and far from boring it's a very interesting hobby.
R
 

[nort]

Does someone who takes photos of gravestones need permission of the church for a churchyard or the council if its a cemetery and the photos are to be put on a website.

Steve